by Brown Robert
The 2009 Temple Sighting
In early 2009, two teenage girls were babysitting for a neighbor in Temple, Michigan. After nightfall, they put the children to bed and sat together in the living room to watch television. Suddenly, they saw a hulking shadow pass across the window. They were both terrified, believing that a potential intruder might be lurking outside.
In order to help them see outside, and to prevent the person outside from seeing in, they immediately shut off every light in the house. Soon after, they heard a loud rustle that seemed to be coming from the property’s nearby barn. The girls headed for a window on that side of the house, now believing that this might be a bear after the owner’s chickens. Just in case, one girl grabbed her digital camera from her purse.
They got up the nerve to step out onto the porch together. As soon as the girls emerged, they described what they saw as a “giant dog” coming out from around the barn. It looked at them briefly before taking off into the woods. One girl managed to snap off a picture with the camera just in time. The picture is now considered an impressive piece of evidence that supports the Dog-Man’s existence. In truth, the figure in this photo does seem to look very “werewolflike.” Copies of the photograph are available all over the Internet.
When the owners returned, the girls told them what had happened. The man of the house went out to the barn to investigate. He claimed to have found a number of rather large paw prints in the snow around the barn. Unfortunately, they were destroyed by new snowfall before they could be cast or documented.
Bark vs. Bite
Many skeptics have pointed out one hole in the validity of this sighting. The girls had a digital camera at the time the owner found the paw prints. This means that he could have at least photographed the prints. Why did he not use the camera to take pictures of the prints, instead of waiting until he could cast them later?
Defiance, Ohio: A Werewolf in Blue Jeans
From the last week of July into the early weeks of August in 1972, some “thing” was lurking in darkness around the area of the Norfolk-Western railroad tracks, located on the outskirts of the small town of Defiance, Ohio.
The first encounter was on the Saturday night of July 25, 1972, when railroad employee Ted Davis found himself confronted by a 6-foot-tall, hairy … thing. Thinking this must be a practical joke, Mr. Davis started to say something. The thing, however, ran off into the nearby woods before he could say a word. The next night, he and another co-worker saw it again, this time at a distance. Both men decided they should let authorities know about it. Their descriptions were fairly similar (for example, both men said it had been wearing blue jeans … something werewolves are known to do … right?) except when it came to height. Mr. Davis told officers that it was about 6 feet tall. His co-worker, however, claimed that it was more like 8 feet tall. Authorities decided to investigate but chose not to disclose the report to the local townspeople. After all, this was probably just some bored local kids messing around.
In the days that followed, witnesses began coming into the Defiance police station with similar, but mostly vague and unusual, descriptions of nocturnal attacks. They insisted that their assailant was tall (between 7 and 9 feet, according to many eyewitness statements to police), covered with fur, with fangs and the head of an animal … basically explaining that it/he looked a lot like a werewolf. Within a little more than one week, at least three people had reported being violently accosted by the same furry perpetrator.
The Savage Truth
The small town of Defiance is located in northern Ohio and is less than an hour’s drive from the southern border of Michigan. This has led a few beast investigators to theorize that these, too, were encounters with a beast of the same species as the Beast of Bray Road and the Michigan Dog-Man. Unlike sightings of those creatures, however, sightings of the Defiance werewolf have not occurred since the late summer/ early fall of 1972.
One detail, however, soon blew most of the air out of the initial theories that these attacks were being carried out by a werewolf. In the second week, another man was attacked by something tall and hairy. This time, however, the thing smacked him over the head, “pro wrestler style,” with a wood two-by-four. Though dazed, the man managed to escape.
The night just after this, a group of three unidentified locals entered the Defiance Police Station in a state of absolute panic. They begged the officers to protect them. When asked what they needed protection from, the only answer they could provide was that they were being chased by a “thing.” Apparently, they’d heard this “thing” but never actually laid eyes on it. Sometime shortly after this, it would seem almost the whole town of Defiance, Ohio, went temporarily insane. Chaos (and some hilarity) soon ensued.
That same night, just after one in the morning, a panicked local man came to the police station to report that something had begun following him near the tracks earlier the previous evening. He’d run to a local hotel to take shelter in the lobby, where he appears to have been for most of the night before going to the police.
Only 10 minutes later, a local woman called the station, telling officers that a friend had come by her house in a state of absolute hysteria. She’d only just heard the story about this “thing” and had gone frantic because for the last few weeks, at two o’clock every morning, someone (or perhaps some “thing”) had been rattling the knob of her front door. Hearing about the “thing” and realizing how close to two o’clock it was, the woman had immediately fled her own house (probably still wearing her nightgown). She sought refuge at the nearby home of a friend, who then called the police.
Sightings continued on for a couple of weeks, mostly coming in from railroad employees and motorists. However, the attacks seem to have stopped. Perhaps the so-called “Werewolf of Defiance,” who was almost certainly some idiot in a mask, decided that he liked being a local legend much better than consistently sucking at being a mugger.
Bark vs. Bite
You probably don’t need to be told that the Defiance werewolf likely wasn’t a werewolf at all. Exhibit A … it didn’t kill anyone. Exhibit B ... werewolves are not known to use two-by-fours to take someone down (and if they did, it would probably be fatal). More than likely, this was some drug addict or homeless person who, needing money and having no other disguise than a rubber werewolf mask, put the thing over his head and started attacking people in attempts to rob them. FYI, he was never reported to have successfully done so (which, ironically, was probably due to the mask he was wearing).
The Black Hounds of Britain
In towns and shires all across the United Kingdom, one can find a multitude of local legends regarding unusual occurrences related to encounters with ghostly black dog figures. The ill fates that are often said to have befallen those who have seen these dogs have led many to label them with the title of hellhounds.
Beastly Words
Hellhounds are exactly what their title suggests—hounds that come from hell. This idea likely originated from an ancient myth, such as that of the giant, three-headed dog named Cerberus that guards the gates of the underworld (the domain of the death god Hades) in Greek mythology. These dogs are often described as black, sometimes resembling shadows, with glowing red eyes.
The exact origins of these stories are unknown. Some say they are literally true, while others view them as mythic metaphors associated with the fear of death and/or misfortune. Many black dog legends claim that the number of times one saw a hellhound dictated what would happen. Most commonly, one time means joy, two times means ill fortune, and a third time is a sign of an untimely death (of the person or someone close to him or her).
The significance of three suggests an origin from ancient mythology, when monstrous canines were often said to guard the threshold to certain realms of the dead. For example, Norse myth has the figure of Fenrir, a gigantic wolf that is bound until the arrival of Ragnarok (the Norse version of the apocalypse). Most westerners are more familiar with the Greek myth of Cerberus. Cerbe
rus was a terribly strong and enormous dog, said to have three heads, that guarded the gate to the underworld. This likely led to an anglicized version of the legend that seeing a black dog three times is an omen of death.
The Curse
In the popular television series Supernatural, hellhounds are demonic beasts that collect the souls of those who have made deals with a “crossroads demon.”
How’d That Dog Get in Here?
One story from the latter half of the sixteenth century tells of one such black dog encounter that befell a church in Suffolk. A terrible thunder-storm rattled the structure of the church during a regular sermon. Suddenly a snarling, pitch black dog appeared near the pulpit before the entire congregation. The dog’s presence inside of the church was especially odd because all windows and doors had already been secured to keep out the storm.
The dog stepped forward as the congregation watched in stunned silence.
The shadowy animal brushed against one churchgoer, who was probably paralyzed with fear. The man immediately fell stone dead to the floor. The man’s wife reached for him and also brushed against the black fur of this hellish creature. As a result, she too was struck dead, following her husband into the afterlife. A third man boldly took hold of the creature to remove it from the church. His fate was even worse. The story goes that he shrieked feebly as his entire body shriveled like a prune, as if his very life-force was being drained from his body. He soon fell to the floor, looking much like a mummy.
There’s That Dog Again!
According to the legend, this same black hound also appeared before a congregation at a church in Blythburg almost immediately after the incident at the Suffolk church. This was thought unusual because the churches sat roughly 7 to 8 miles away from one another.
The outcome of the black hound’s appearance at the Blythburg church would be no less tragic than at Suffolk. Again, the hound took the lives of three church members. The head clergyman stepped forward, leading a group of fellow priests and invoking the name of God in an attempt to restrain the dark beast. The entire group, however, was blown clear across the church by some unseen force. Today, many landmark buildings in Blythburg can be seen with dog-shaped weather-vanes, said to represent this black hound of death, as a grim memorial of the incident.
The Savage Truth
In the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, a character by the name of Sirius Black assumes the form of a black hound. This causes Harry and his friends to mistakenly believe that Harry has fallen under the shadow of an evil omen called “The Grim.” J. K. Rowling’s use of this idea was likely inspired by the British lore about ominous black hounds.
He Don’t Brake for Hellhounds
Another British hellhound story dates from the late nineteenth century and allegedly occurred in or around Norfolk. The story usually goes that, on that particular day, two farmers were in a hurry, running late with their goods, which they were to sell at the town market (most versions claim the market was in Norfolk). They whipped their horses, forcing them to pull the heavily packed wagon as fast as possible—without throwing their precious cargo, of course.
A black dog with blazing red eyes stepped into the wagon’s path, though it was still a good ways ahead. The farmer who was driving the wagon, not wanting to risk being slowed down or having his wagon tipped by attempting to avoid the animal, is said to have driven right over the shadowy beast without so much as slowing down. This would certainly have been considered a rather disrespectful (not to mention stupid) transgression against an obvious messenger of death. Suddenly both men began to notice the heavy odors of sulfur and smoke. They soon came to the realization that, much to their horror, the entire wagon (which, as one might expect, was made entirely of wood) was now completely engulfed in flames. The hound, it seemed, had disappeared into a raging ball of fire.
The men now had no other choice but to leap from the wagon, both barely escaping with their lives. Sadly, however, they lost all of their sale goods, not to mention their wagon and both of the horses. Some versions of the story say the two horses ran straight through the market of Norfolk, dragging behind them the ball of fire that had once been a wagon full of valuable goods. Spurred on by the flames (which to them probably seemed to be pursuing close behind), the horses eventually ran themselves to death.
As for the driver who so hastily drove over the fiery beast? Well, most versions of the legend tell that the wagon driver was dead before the next morning (though some versions claim he died at sundown, at the moment when the last rays of the sun disappeared over the horizon). Some stories say the other farmer escaped with only some form of permanent injury or maiming, while others say that he, too, was soon dead. However, the details regarding when the second farmer died are rather vague. It would be obvious to anyone that the man died eventually, but many such versions of this legend fail to elaborate as to whether he died much later or just by a matter of days. One version claims that the wagon-driving farmer died at sunset (which is, incidentally, when the moon became fully visible) and the other farmer met his end upon the following sunrise (when the moon disappeared).
The Least You Need to Know
• While some insist that the Beast of Bray Road is a Sasquatch, most locals insist that it looks like a werewolf.
• Some beast investigators theorize that the Michigan Dog-Man and the “Werewolf of Wisconsin” are actually the same creature or at least animals of the same species.
• The incidents surrounding the so-called “Werewolf of Defiance” would probably be more appropriately referred to as “The Heyday of Some Moron in a Wolf Mask.”
• The United Kingdom has a multitude of local folklore, much of which includes stories about terrible occurrences caused by encounters with shadowy canine figures.
Part 4
Of Wolf and Man
How do we as individuals address the bestial side of our natures? What should one expect to experience (hypothetically) if bitten by a werewolf or otherwise somehow afflicted with it? What should one do if confronted by a werewolf (aside from run screaming, of course)? What are the potential rational explanations for lycanthropy? What do werewolves represent to the psyche? The answers to these questions and more are conveniently at your fingertips.
Chapter 15
Once Bitten ... Then What?
In This Chapter
• How to know if you or someone you know has been infected with lycanthropy
• A close examination of each of the three degrees of lycanthropic infection
• What every newly infected werewolf needs to know about his or her first transformation
• Just how much you may or may not need to concern yourself with the moon
• A look at some of the potential cures for those infected with lycanthropy
So you’ve been bitten by a werewolf, have you? This probably means that any number of possibilities has occurred. Perhaps you failed to heed the warnings provided in Chapter 1 and decided that you would just go looking for a lycanthrope on your own. Then again, you may have gotten hasty and decided you would try to hunt down a werewolf before you finished reading (or even bothered looking at) Chapter 16 on how to properly deal with one. Of course, there is also the possibility that you had a run-in with a werewolf long before you ever got your hands on this book. The matter of how you came to be in this precarious situation is, quite honestly, no longer of any real consequence. What’s done is done … right?
If you have been bitten by a werewolf, or just suspect you have, then at the present moment there is probably only one question going through your mind. What in the world are you supposed to do now? Well, sometimes the best medicine is to be as well informed as possible. The following pages can at least help you in that regard … but unfortunately, that is about all it can do for you. Best of luck, my future furry friend! Please keep in mind, most of the information in this chapter addresses cursed lycanthropy. Clinical, psychological, and enchanted forms do not always correspond to th
ese symptoms or methods. Remember, there are many different types of lycanthropes.
The Primary Symptoms
Let’s not panic just yet. It’s quite possible that you were just bitten by some stray dog, rabid coyote, or some other breed of undomesticated canine. In any case, you should probably bandage the bite and just take this book with you to the emergency room so you can get yourself checked out. You can always read this over while you wait to be seen. Don’t worry about “wolfing out” at the hospital. Most available accounts support the idea that you’ve still got enough time left to see a doctor before you start randomly attacking, biting, or eating people. Of course, knowing this may not be all that comforting.
There are a number of primary symptoms for which you should be on the lookout. The initial symptoms of lycanthropy infection are commonly thought to include combinations of the following: